I had planned on attaching the top of the rover to the base today…I really did. But alas….only halfway there.

In order to attach the hinge in the right spot and allow the base to be uniform and not off center, I needed to shift the hinge to the side of the 1/2” plywood. That being the case, there’s not much plywood there on the edge for attaching hinges that will hold the top half of the base and a $350 telescope.

So I improvised—-I attached a strip of tubafore along the edge of the plywood on the base, and glued it down, then screwed it in from the top. Now I had a nice edge for the other tubafore (which will support the hinge) to attach. Once that was glued and screwed in place, I was feeling pretty good.

I purposely raised the tubafore hinge support up above the base plywood the thickness of the tubatwo stock I had, so that as the top half hinged down, it would put a little more pressure on the inner tube. I have seen pictures online of people doing it this way (using a whole tubafore, not half) and the other, without anything and just hinging it flat. Meh. We’ll see if it works.

Using some of that tubatwo stock, I cut a support piece for the opposite side of the inner tube, so that when the hiss drive is not in use, I can keep the telescope level. This will be hinged so as to swing out of the way of the compression of the inner tube or secured up for level observing. Haven’t thought up a good way to secure it yet…

I next cut a piano hinge to length and attached it to the tubafore support.

With the 6” of offcut hinge, I decided to waste not want not and cut it into two 3” sections. This necessitated drilling two new holes for screws (which means I’m going to be short on screws…but that can be fixed) on each hinge. These will hold the tubatwo support block.

I got to the point where I was drilling pilot holes for the hinges when life intervened and I needed to care the kids and cook dinner, etc….so…

Tomorrow this whole thing should be put together! Then I get to start working on the actual drive unit!